In the Long Run

“….Wheel your weight away! Introducing the revolutionary, amazing, surprisingly simple exercise device guaranteed to melt those pounds right off your body! It’s The Wheel! Easy to use—just push The Wheel along as you jog a mere 30 minutes a day!......”

The high school track coach loaned me The Wheel so I could measure a route for a walk/run the YMCA is sponsoring in September. I thought the city pathway would be a suitable and pleasant “out and back” route. I wheeled along, whistling while I worked, (OK, so that was hyperbole) as I measured the proposed 1 mile, 5K and 10K distances. The Wheel clattered, I pattered, and at about 805 meters, or approximately ½ mile, I was right at the end of the first path segment. Perfect! This made a natural turnaround point for The One Mile Walk.

Quite pleased, I continued to push and jog. However the 5K and 10K distances did not work out as well. The turnaround for the 5K race measured 100 meters beyond a particularly inconvenient street crossing, which meant it would require the runners to cross twice within a couple of minutes. And unfortunately the path ended before I reached the accurate distance for a turnaround for the 10K race. These were two major shortcomings in my plan.

I stopped in the middle of the path and brainstormed solutions for making the routes precise, and yet pleasing.
A docile deer about 20 feet (about 7.5meters) off in the brush eyed me inquisitively, no doubt wondering what new type of exercise equipment this human was using. “It’s called The Wheel,” I muttered sarcastically.

I decided to measure several different loops off of the path on city streets, but I could never match the required distance to satisfactory routes. After two and a half hot and sweaty hours, I gave up. I wheeled back to my car, a bit frustrated, because I had really wanted to make the path fit my races.

That night, while pondering the problem, it occurred to me that I could just shorten the runs to 3 miles and 5 miles, and then the city path routes I had desired would work out almost perfectly for the event. After all, who says the runs have to be measured in kilometers?! Americans disregard the metric system all the time. Most people, even runners, are more familiar with miles than kilometers anyway. Changing my calculations from meters to miles was only a simple Google calculator click away.

As we wend life’s (or our city’s) paths, we can’t always make the path fit our plan, but perhaps we can tweak our plan to fit the path. Our solutions may not be revolutionary, amazing, or the subject of an infomercial. In fact, they may be surprisingly simple, as in my case with the race routes. After all, meters or miles don’t really make much difference to me. I’ll take my next long run on the city path without my fluorescent orange exercise equipment.

Posted by Cyppy at 10:46 PM